There are plenty of quality inkjet printers that produce a stunning A4 photo, but far fewer can do it at twice the size. In fact, look around for an A3 printer and the choices drop while the price hikes up.

The big draw with Epson’s Stylus Photo R2400 is its UltraChrome K3 inks.
This refers to three black inks, which Epson quaintly calls black, light black and light-light black.

Actually, there are four, as you can swap between photo black and matte black cartridges, depending on the type of paper you’re using. The importance of all these blacks is in getting very neutral colour prints and, of course, in printing superb black-and-white images.

As well as the three black ink cartridges, there are five colour tanks. A large print head takes the eight cartridges, beneath a smoked plastic cover to what is a substantially big printer.

The Epson Stylus Photo R2400 is 60cm wide and, with its telescopic paper trays fully extended, over 70cm deep, too. It can be connected via USB or Firewire, and is compatible with both Mac and PC.

There are three ways to feed paper through this printer. At the back, paper from 15 x 10cm up to A3+ can be fed (which is big enough to print borderless A3). Alternatively, fit the supplied roll paper holders for continuous paper printing, or feed thick sheets from the front of the printer to the back.

These are versatile options and the R2400 lends itself to semi-professional photographers as well as the keen amateur. You do have to cut roll paper prints with scissors, though, as there is no automatic paper cutter.

The Epson Stylus Photo R2400 is undoubtedly better used as a large photo printer than an everyday plain paper document device. Although it can print on regular paper, we found black text to come out dark grey (or should that be light black).

Photos, however, print extremely well; very close to the original and with no noticeable colour cast. Moreover, an A4 print should work out at about 60p on photo paper, which is very reasonable.

However, the £500 price tag will keep the R2400 in the camp of the photo enthusiast.

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HP Photosmart 8450
Verdict: Huge and expensive but produces great photos and text while being fairly cheap to maintain
Rating: 4/5
Price: £249